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In search of the meaning of technology: A Vygotskian's cultural-historical study in higher education
DISSERTATION

, University of Idaho, United States

University of Idaho . Awarded

Abstract

This study explored the Vygotskian Cultural-Historical school of theories as well as Vygotsky's methodological and logical approaches to research. By using this theoretical framework, a study of graduate faculty members' meanings of technology was the topic for investigation in a northwest university. The study used a cultural-historical qualitative methodology, as a methodology and as an approach for analysis. Exploratory, explanatory, and emancipatory activities were engaged throughout the whole study on both theoretical and empirical grounds. As researcher, I also put myself into the Zone of Proximal Development as an experiment of emancipatory action to experience Vygotsky's implications for education. The two different routes of knowledge, including Vygotsky's propositions and my own direct experience, working in different direction finally met together as a new concept for me. The study also synthesized the themes of meanings that had been made by those graduate faculty members within their culturally situated and historically developing environment. I, then, studied their meanings as a unit of analysis of their psychological and physical activities with technology in a College of Education. In search of the meaning of technology, therefore, became a tool for me, as researcher, to study Vygotsky; at the same time, it is also a result of the study.

Citation

Hsu, C. In search of the meaning of technology: A Vygotskian's cultural-historical study in higher education. Ph.D. thesis, University of Idaho. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from .

This record was imported from ProQuest on October 23, 2013. [Original Record]

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